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Lucky Green vs. Palladium
CodeTrap writes "Wired has an interesting story "Can a Hacker Outfox Microsoft" on a fellow named Lucky Green that is attempting to force the issue surrounding MS's Palladium Gambit using a very creative method involving patents. If his patents are granted, MS will be unable to use Palladium to enforce software licensing. If MS challenges his patent, then we all know thier true intentions. Very clever indeed."
Warning: excessively realistic and cynical comments follow
Sorry buddy, but you will not get justice in this country unless you have the money for a team of attack lawyers. Anything that may cost Microsoft money will be dealth with swiftly and efficiently, and unless you can match them benjamin for benjamin on legal fees, it's not going to work. Think I'm wrong? Look at the prosecution and conviction rates for poor people compared to rich people for the exact same crime and similar evidence.
What happens if entity A has a patent pending on something, and during this period, entity B files for a patent, or infringes on what would eventually become a patent?
When two parties file for patents on the same technology, the patent is awarded to whomever filed first, unless prior art can be proven.
As for infringement, the proud owner of the new patent has their lawyer send the infringer a cease and desist order. If the infringer honors the order hopefully, that is the end of it. If however, the infringer has made significant moneys AND the patent holders lawyers are good there may be some punitive damages awarded against the infringer.
From the article:
"Biddle insisted that the impetus behind Palladium was solely to secure digital entertainment content and that he knew of no way that it could be used for the enforcement of software licensing."
Now, according to El Reg, Microsoft recently published a job ad for a position within the Palladium group which contained the following sentence:
"Our technology allows content providers, enterprises and consumers to control what others can do with their digital information, such as documents, music, video, ebooks, and software. Become a key leader, providing vision and industry leadership in developing DRM, Palladium and Software Licensing products and Trust Infrastructure Services."
Contradiction city, I say.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
If microsoft does make him that offer he will have achieved his objective of making Microsoft show there colours. I kind of feel that if it when to court he might have a problem because he patented an idea after it was mentioned in a conference, if it was mentioned in a conference it is already in the Public Domain so not patentable, but just having the case in the first place would prove his objectives.
;-)
As a block it might work it is to high a risk to bring a product to market then worry about the patents, and example of a company who ignored patents feeling they could challege them after they got there product to market was Kodac v Polaroid. The whole affair cost kodac so much that no one else even tried to produce instant film. Of course they missed the ball on digital cameras
Yes microsoft could also try to patent the same thing, however this would also show there colours.
Personally i feel there is something really quite objectionable of patenting an idea so it cannot be used, the point of the system is to get ideas used but thats patents for you.
James
Microsoft can simply implement the patent secretly, ie phone-home software licensing data, without announcing it. Deny they do this if necessary - after all, the data is not for public consumption, just for 'partners'.
Doesn't matter if the patent is granted - the patentee will get nowhere suing MS, and this way round the burden of proof is on the patentee proving MS used the patented technique.
Might even find DCMA covers the encrypted data been phoned-home, so it could be illegal to attempt to prove such patent (if granted) was violated. Wow!
Lucky Green is a well known cypherpunk, a guy who has been around for a long time. He might lose, but he won't sell out.
It's kind of strange seeing the name pop up, especially after seeing Perry Metzger's name yesterday, in connection with the OpenBSD privilage elevation. The old Cypherpunks are still out there fighting the good fight.
This interesting startegy has prallells among corporations competing with each other. I heard rumors that Motorola has pursued this strategy against certain telecom competitors:
If a competitor has a strong patent, and they want to pursue the same technology, then there is an alternative to violation.
They pursue patents on improvements on the original patent. A couple of years down the line, the originator will be compelled to use some of the (perhaps obvious) patented improvements. Then they are in an excellent bargaining position, either for royalites or for rights to the original patent.
Tor
1. The federal cicuit has been more keen lately on invalidating internet or business method patents due to obviousness problems.
It could be argued that it would be obvious to extend palladium's capabilities to include software registration enforcment.
2. Microsoft is not above patent law on legitimate patents:
Since 1998, Microsoft has been named a defendant in at least 35 patent-infringement cases, compared with seven suits in the prior 22 years. Twenty-one are currently active. - wsj 10/3/02
In the RMS biography "Free as in Freedom" by Sam Williams, the point is made that Stallman views the legal system as just another system to be hacked upon. There is a complex set of rules to follow, and with a clever, well-made program (e.g. the GPL) you can achieve things people hadn't even thought were possible.
Using the patent system against itself and against Microsoft seems to me to be at least a similar idea, if not the same thing.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Consider this:
1) Microsoft wants everyone to use their software.
2) Microsoft wants everyone to pay to use their software.
3) Microsoft wants to ensure through techinal means that everyone pay to use their software because users cannot be trusted and we are all villians.
4) Microsoft will use Palladium/ to ensure that everyone pay to use their software.
Joe Blow Public doesn't care about any of this because Joe Blow Public invests in Microsoft shares and are happy when they get a good rate of return. As long as Microsoft makes them money and they can run their birthday card creator program, they don't care. How many non-slashdot readers are going to say "Wow, Microsoft does some things I don't like - maybe I shouldn't use their software"? Yeah right!
I applaud this guy for at least doing something, but this won't prove anything we don't already know.
This is known as a Submarine Patent.
This is a boring sig
Where do we put a statue for this guy? ;-)
But seriously... If MS fights these patents they show their true intentions you say? Why is that? Maybe they would rather have had those patents themselves? For what purpose ? True... probably the wrong one (wrong in OUR eyes), but maybe to make sure no one misuses THEIR technologie (palladium) ?
Why is no one doubting the intentions of this guy? And maybe if his intentions are good NOW, what if he is granted these patents and realises, maybe not now, but somewhere along the way, what power and possible wealth he could gain with these patents? Maybe at a point that he desperately needs money or whatever, or just because of plain greed.
We always question MS here, but we still need to take a carefull look at the other parties as well ok?